New monitor issue, not sure if OS is making it worse

Ok, had a monitor before that I broke in a rage when I had the bad flu, that setup was PC 1 connected to HDTV for gaming, and monitor for browsing and pc gaming, PC2 connected to CRTtv via component and monitor for browsing (which was rare) and if I needed to change settings as the crt was too low res to see things.

Then used a 2nd hdtv in place of monitor and had no issues.

Get a new monitor and issues have started, first couldn't get the dvi connection to work on main though worked eventually think the connection wasn't tight enough. PC2 connected via hdmi has had issues, the pc uses that as main connection when booting and then switches to component for windows, in the end I had to use F8 to boot and use low res mode to get into Windows via the crt, then either duplicate display to new monitor nothing else worked.

At this point got displayport for main pc and works perfect, took the dvi cable from main and used that on media pc, then reinstalled Windows on PC2.

Same issues as before, but what I tend to notice is that Windows 7 built in resolution changer is broken, that just reports out of range, Nvidias works fine but still I can only now either duplicate display (assuming both are at compatable resolution) use new monitor at 1080p, crt at 576p on their own or extend which makes both out of range.

So I can't find a way to get nvidia control panel to set the extend settings before I select apply so it doesn't do this.

Either way what can the actual issue be?

Oh and the new monitor does have a 144hz refresh but I set to 60 anyway that may cause a issue.